The Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research

The current prevailing view is that participation in biomedical research is above and beyond the call of duty. While some commentators have offered reasons against this, we propose a novel public goods argument for an obligation to participate in biomedical research. Biomedical knowledge is a public good, available to any individual even if that individual does not contribute to it. Participation in research is a critical way to support an important public good. Consequently, all have a duty to participate. The current social norm is that individuals participate only if they have a good reason to do so. The public goods argument implies that individuals should participate unless they have a good reason not to. Such a shift would be of great aid to the progress of biomedical research, eventually making society significantly healthier and longer lived

Design of 3D-Printed Titanium Compliant Mechanisms

This paper describes 3D-printed titanium compliant mechanisms for aerospace applications. It is meant as a primer to help engineers design compliant, multi-axis, printed parts that exhibit high performance. Topics covered include brief introductions to both compliant mechanism design and 3D printing in titanium, material and geometry considerations for 3D printing, modeling techniques, and case studies of both successful and unsuccessful part geometries. Key findings include recommended flexure geometries, minimum thicknesses, and general design guidelines for compliant printed parts that may not be obvious to the first time designer

Morphometric Analysis and Flash Floods Assessment of River Taraba Basin in Taraba State, Nigeria

Morphmetric analysis was conducted for River Taraba Catchments Area in Taraba with an emphasis on its hydrological response to storm events using geospatial techniques. The Study Basin comprises of nine small watersheds. The drainage network is dendritic. RTCA is a 7th order drainage basin, with an area of 15777 km2, having a perimeter of about 959km.The Lo value registered was 1.64 km .This denote gentle slope and stretch paths network on the watershed. The mean Rb varies between 3.0 and 5.14 for the catchment, indicating a transitional zone of geological structure with a less remarkable influence of structural disturbances. Value of drainage density indicates moderate runoff potentials. This depicts geological structures which do not distort the drainage pattern as such. The Basin has long Lb, of 242 km. This is an indication of low flooding susceptibility. The elongated the basin length, the little the effect on the extent to which the surface runoff manipulate the basin and been lowered by agents of denudation. Catchment characterizations of the study area and basin morphometry do not typify high flooding susceptibility. Environmental degradation through proliferation of haphazard and uncontrolled development within and around the flood plain seems the cause of incessant flooding in the catchments. Hazards occur when people place themselves in the path of geophysical and climatological agents. Governments should discourage influx to buffer and exploitation of the drainage basin in the study area

Laser Applications

Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.U. S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research(Contract F44620-71-C-0051)Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DAAB07-71-C-0300Naval Air Systems Comman

Prescribing “placebo treatments”: results of national survey of US internists and rheumatologists

Objective To describe the attitudes and behaviours regarding placebo treatments, defined as a treatment whose benefits derive from positive patient expectations and not from the physiological mechanism of the treatment itself

Gravitation Research

Contains research objectives and reports on two research projects.Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force) under Contract DA 36-039-AMC-03200(E

Microspine Gripping Mechanism for Asteroid Capture

This paper details the development and early testing of a compliant suspension for a microspine gripper device for asteroid capture or micro-gravity percussive drilling. The microspine gripper architecture is reviewed, and a proposed microspine suspension design is presented and discussed. Prototyping methods are discussed, as well as testing methods and results. A path forward is identified from the results of the testing completed thus far. Key findings include: the microspine concept has been established as a valid architecture and the compliant suspension exhibits the desired stiffness characteristics for good gripping behavior. These developments will aid in developing the capability to grasp irregularly shaped boulders in micro-gravity

Scanning tunneling microscopy studies of graphene and hydrogenated graphene on Cu

Because of the innate sensitivity of 2D material surfaces, it is increasingly important to understand and characterize surface functionalization and interactions with environmental elements, such as substrate, metallic contacts, and adatoms. We developed a method for reproducible, epitaxial growth of pristine graphene islands on Cu(111) in UHV and use scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM) to study the interaction of these graphene islands with the Cu substrate. Tunneling spectroscopy measurements of the electronic surface states over the graphene islands indicate a lower local work function, decreased coupling to bulk Cu states, and a decreased electron effective mass. Additionally, we developed a novel field electron dissociation technique to form hydrogen-terminated graphene at low temperatures and in UHV. This method produced what may be the first STM images of crystalline hydrogenated graphene. The pristine graphene island is then recovered by scanning at a high tip-sample bias. The hydrogenation and its reversibility suggest writing lateral 2D devices using the STM tip. Toward this end, we are developing the capability to repeat the hydrogenation on working graphene device